On Sunday evenings I like to watch Nicole Curtis on the DYI Channel
show “Rehab Addict” for three reasons. First (and don’t you dare tell the Queen
B I said this) she has the kind of looks that would make an oak tree sprout rosebuds.
Second, she has good tips on renovating houses, something we still try our
hands at from time to time, the Queen B and I. Third, Nicole doesn’t destroy.
She saves and renews.
That’s refreshing on a channel that usually features wild-eyed
morons with sledge hammers destroying perfectly good cabinetry that could
either be saved or donated to a family who needs it. They follow this by
putting up cheap, gaudy cr…, uh, stuff that won’t last a year.
We have never built a new house. We’ve restored an old
Victorian cottage in Little Rock’s Quapaw Quarter and an old farmhouse in
Lonoke County, both to some degree of respectability. We also spruced up a
couple of other homes to the point where we made a profit upon selling them.
Now we are renovating a condominium in downtown Little Rock.
Actually we are having it done. We’ve gotten a little slow in “the springabout”
to be lifting sheetrock panels over our heads as we once did.
Living in a “throwaway” culture is a little sad,
though. The typical automatic dishwasher now will perform, from my
investigation, for somewhere between six and ten years before it must be replaced. In our small condo
unit, the dishwasher installed in the seventies whines a bit but still does the
job. So do the bathroom sink fixtures. Can you imagine how long those silly
things that one just taps to make the water come out will last? Oh well.
Anyway, it seems that the idea of “sweat equity” doesn’t
command the appeal it once did. In my profession, we concern ourselves a lot
with the concept of affordable housing. In an increasing number of cities, it
simply doesn’t exist. If a young couple starting out wants to work there, they
won’t be able to live there. Too bad.
We were lucky. We were young once, and foolish. It simply
never dawned on us that we couldn’t take a fallen down old home and bring it
back to life. I suppose had we been smarter, as these young folks are today, we
would have known not to try it.
But I’m awfully glad we did.
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| Brenda and my nephew, the late William Howard Morgan, Jr, work on a 1890s Victorian Cottage in Little Rock. |
See also: www.wattensawpress.com
www.travelswithanalien.blogspot.com
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